Wall Street ends lower after shooting at Canadian parliament

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US stocks erased earlier gains to close lower today as a shooting at the Canadian parliament unnerved investors, Boeing and Biogen sold off following results, and energy stocks fell along with oil prices.

Indexes had traded in positive territory for much of the session, putting the S&P 500 on track for a fifth straight day of gains. Earnings initially drove the move higher, with technology and material shares up on the back of strong results.

Market benchmarks began drifting lower after the government reported a surprise increase in crude oil inventories. Energy shares were off 1.7 percent as crude oil fell, settling near $80 per barrel.

Canada's capital was jolted by the fatal shooting of a soldier and an attack on the parliament building in which gunshots were fired outside a room where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was speaking. Toronto stocks fell 1.6 percent, also affected by oil's slide.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 153.49 points, or 0.92 percent, to 16,461.32, the S&P 500 lost 14.17 points, or 0.73 percent, to 1,927.11 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 36.63 points, or 0.83 percent, to 4,382.85.

After the close, revenue at Dow component AT&T fell short of analyst expectations and shares were down more than 2 percent.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by 2,138 to 928, for a 2.30-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,988 issues fell and 701 advanced.

The benchmark S&P 500 index posted 44 new 52-week highs and 1 new low; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 54 new highs and 35 new lows.

About 7 billion shares changed hands on US exchanges, below the 8.3 billion October average, according to BATS Global Markets.

EUROPEAN MARKETS

European shares nudged higher today, supported by a raft of positive corporate earnings and mild inflation data from the United States which may encourage the U.S. Federal Reserve to keep interest rates lower for longer.

However, the session was volatile, with euro zone banks under pressure early on after Spain's EFE news agency reported that several European lenders might fail EU bank stress tests.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 closed up 0.7 percent at 1,308.73, regaining the ground lost after the stress-test report came out.

US consumer prices rose marginally in September, painting a weak inflation picture that should give the Federal Reserve ample room to keep interest rates low for a while longer.

Also on the upside, GlaxSmithKline rose 2.6 percent after beating earnings expectations and saying it expected a vaccine against Ebola to be ready later this year.

So far in Europe's earnings season, 9 percent of STOXX 600 companies have reported results, of which 65 percent have met or beaten profit forecasts, according to data from Thomson Reuters StarMine.

However, British American Tobacco fell 2.6 percent, taking the most points off the FTSEurofirst 300, after reporting an accelerated decline in the number of cigarettes sold, citing economic pressures on smokers worldwide to rein in spending.

Heineken also fell after results, dropping 1 percent as the world's No. 3 brewer reported lower-than-expected beer sales in the third quarter.

Euro zone banks recovered to trade slightly higher despite falling more than 1 percent after EFE's report that at least 11 banks from six European countries are set to fail the region-wide financial health check this weekend, citing unidentified sources.

Spain's economy minister said he was confident Spanish lenders would do well in the European Central Bank's checks, and Austria's Erste Bank denied it was among those that had failed the test.

Erste Bank closed down 0.9 percent, having traded as much as 2.3 percent lower.

The ECB sought to cool speculation. "Any inferences drawn as to the final outcome of the exercise would be highly speculative until the results are final on 26 October," said a spokesman.

The issue "does underline the fragility of the European economy because if you don't have secure, robust banking institutions in place, (the economy) just won't be able to grow," Redmayne-Bentley investment manager David Battersby said.

ASIAN MARKETS

Japanese stocks climbed more than 2 percent as the prospect of the European Central Bank taking further action to stimulate the faltering eurozone economy boosted investor sentiment.

The Nikkei share average rose 2.6 percent to close at 15,195.77 points, more than recouping Tuesday's losses.